Annual Conference: Vienna (IASA solo conference)
President: Sven Allerstrand, Arkivet för Ljud och Bild, Sweden. Crispin Jewitt, British Library National Sound Archive, UK
Editor: Chris Clark, The British Library National Sound Archive, London, UK
The present Board of IASA has as one of its general aims to increase and encourage co-operation not only between our members but also with other organisations. In the Philosophy of AV- archiving (now available on the web and in French) Ray Edmondson has provided a solid theoretical basis for the profession of AV- archiving. It shows clearly that whatever our speciality may be, sound, video or film, we have a lot of common interests as AV- archivists. Today, there are several international associations working in this field. The acronyms of FIAT, FIAF, AMIA, SEAPAVAA etc. are familiar to many of us. I firmly believe that co-operation between these AV- archival organisations is essential. Especially since digitisation and media convergence will make the borderlines unclear which may result in overlap in areas of responsibility and membership. If there is no co-ordination between the associations, this will no doubt mean unnecessary duplication of work, which we can not afford. It will also give us much stronger influence if the audiovisual archives could speak with one voice for instance in UNESCO and other international fora.
On a smaller scale FIAT and IASA have started to work together on specific projects e.g. joint seminars on matters concerning broadcast archives. From lASA's point of view this co-operation has so far been handled mainly by the Radio Sound Archives Committee.
On another level IASA has been one of the most active participants at the Round Table of Audiovisual Records, a group consisting of all the major international organisations which meets once a year. During the last four or five years this rather informal body, which earlier produced a lot of valuable work, has been functioning less and less well. The agenda has been unclear and there has been a lack of continuity on representation. At this year's meeting which took place in Brussels in March, IASA made a proposal for restructuring and strengthening the Round Table and I am happy to say that this proposal was accepted almost unanimously.
In order to mark that this should be the beginning of something new, the name of the group was changed to the Coordinating Council of Audiovisual Archives, CCAAA (another exciting acronym). Among the approved aims are: to function as a forum for co-ordination, communication and exchange of information between the member organisations; to initiate, install and carry out projects of common interest for more than one organisation; and to organise every third year a joint conference to highlight progress in the various fields of AV- archiving, technology, cataloguing, copyright etc. Representation should be by the President and the Secretary General of the member associations but to ensure continuity the Council should appoint a convenor and a rapporteur for a period of three years.
IASA hopes that this new organisation could vitalise and bring more dynamism into the existing co-operation. But the success of this new umbrella organisation is of course dependent on the energy, capability and dedication of the representatives of the different organisations. This will be one of the many challenging duties for the incoming President and Secretary General of IASA. You have all received the nominations and the ballot papers to the IASA Board Elections 1999. Please take advantage of your democratic right to vote. This time there are several capable candidates for the various offices and the announcement of the results will no doubt be a thrilling event at the General Assembly in Vienna. This is one of many good reasons to register for the Vienna conference. Don't miss it!
Finally, this is the first issue of the IASA Journal with the new design and I hope you like the new look as much as I do. The Editor and the Corporate Design Office of the British Library have in my opinion done an excellent job.
I look forward to seeing you all in Vienna in September.
Sven Allerstrand
President's letter
This is my first opportunity to greet you all as President following my election at the Vienna conference. Thank you for electing me: I look forward to serving your professional interests to the best of my ability over the coming three years.
The affairs of our Association are governed by the elected Executive Board which meets twice a year and undertakes much work in between meetings. We now have a new Board as well as a new President. Albrecht Häfner continues his sterling work as Secretary General and Chris Clark continues as Editor, but we have a new Treasurer in Pekka Gronow. Each of our three Vice-Presidents has a particular area of responsibility, and the presence of the immediate Past President, Sven Allerstrand, provides important continuity for the new Board.
I believe that the key tasks of the Association are twofold: to enable a rich flow of information between members, and to represent our professional interests to the world beyond. Information about standards, initiatives, and developing practice is shared through our publications, our website, and our annual conference. The Board will also support programmes of work undertaken by Task Forces, Committees, and Sections. Following the successful completion of the IASA cataloguing rules a new Task Force is being set up to consider the complex but important issues arising from the need to select and set priorities for the conservation of analogue recordings by transfer to the digital environment. We will continue to develop a portfolio of policy statements and guides to "best practice" which will provide a source of professional guidance for members, and also provide a firmer basis for presenting our interests to others. We have the opportunity to make common cause with neighbouring professional organisations through the Co-ordinating Council of Audiovisual Archive Associations and we also seek opportunities to promote our Association's work through engagement with UNESCO, the European Commission, and other bodies.
A major task each year is the organisation of our principal and flagship event, our annual conference. July 2000 in Singapore will be a memorable event: we are convening with the South East Asia & Pacific Audio-Visual Archives Association (SEAPAVAA). Our colleagues in Singapore are already working hard to plan this event and we can look forward to a rich programme of papers, presentations, visits, and hospitality. We have much to learn from each other and the programme will reflect our determination to hold a joint conference (rather than two conferences sharing the same venue). Renew old friendships, make new ones, improve your professional knowledge, don't miss it!
A personal review of thirty years of IASA (1969 - 1999)
IASA was born during the week beginning August 18th 1969 during the annual conference of the International Association of Music Libraries (IAML). It began when several sound archivists (all members of IAML) gathered in a room at the Institute of Theatre Sound and Picture in Amsterdam. For more than a year they had been planning to found an association which should be devoted specifically to questions related to sound archives. Two associations concerned with the documentation of sound carriers did exist already, namely IAML (through its Record Libraries Commission) and the Fédération Internationale des Phonothèques (FIP).
However, those at the meeting were convinced that the activities of the two organisations did not help them to attain their archival ambitions: FIP showed hardly any commitment at all, and IAML was primarily concerned with the documentation of musical manuscripts and scores. Sound carriers played a subordinate role and the only recordings that interested IAML were those which contained music. In brief, those concerned with sound carriers of all types felt they were the ‘stepchildren' of IAML and FIP and found the situation increasingly objectionable. But they realised that international collaboration in their field was an absolute must, especially in the face of rapid technological progress.
It was these convictions which informed the meeting of IASA's founders at that initial meeting in August l969. Their names have gone down in IASA's history: they were, among others, Patrick Saul (British Institute of Recorded Sound, London), Donald L. Leavitt (Library of Congress, Washington), Philip Miller (Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives, New York), Dietrich Lotichius (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Hamburg), Herbert Rosenberg (Nationaldiskoteket, Kopenhagen), Claes Cnattingius (Sveriges Radio, Stockholm). Rolf Schuursma (Stichting Film en Wetenschap, Utrecht), Timothy Eckersley (BBC, London).
At the end of that same week, Friday 22nd August, 1969, the official foundation ceremony took place with twenty-four participants. The organisation was named International Association of Sound Archives (IASA). Taking into consideration the rather primitive means of worldwide communication in those distant days, the founders of the organisation expressed all but Utopian aims. Don Leavitt (Washington) was elected first president of IASA. Rolf Schuursma became secretary.
Some of the earliest challenges and tests of strength were in the diplomatic rather than in the professional field. In 1972, the association comprised 40 institutions and 37 personal members. IASA was not able to organize annual meetings by itself, therefore a larger organisation's infrastructure had to be used. IAML was the obvious choice and for many years IAML and IASA held their annual conferences together and inspired one another with their different fields of work. After a series of meetings in 1978-1980 a so-called "Joint IAML/IASA Working Committee on Music and Sound Archives" was founded. Claes Cnattingius (Sveriges Radio Stockholm), Derek Lewis (BBC London), Marie-France Calas (Bibliothèque Nationale Paris) and Ulf Scharlau (Süddeutscher Rundfunk Stuttgart) were appointed members of the Joint Committee. Its task was to meet before the annual conferences in order to organise events in which both associations shared interests and to minimise conflicts.
In the mid 1970s a younger generation of archivists became influential in IASA. Two colleagues in particular should be mentioned: David Lance (then at the Imperial War Museum, London) and Dietrich Schüller (Phonogramm-Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna). They were soon to take on important functions in IASA's board.
IASA has been fortunate in continuing to find highly qualified personalities who are willing to run for positions on the executive board of the organisation. The roll-call of presidents includes: Donald L. Leavitt (USA, 1969-1972), Timothy Eckersley (England, 1972-1975), Dietrich Schüller (Austria. 1975-1978), Rolf Schuursma (Netherlands, 1978-1981), David Lance (England, 1981 -1984), Ulf Scharlau (Germany, 1984-1987), Helen Harrison (England, 1987-1990), Gerald Gibson (USA. 1990-1993), James McCarthy (Australia, 1993-1996) and Sven Allerstrand (Sweden, 1996-1999). General Secretaries (the backbone of our association) have included: Rolf Schuursma (Netherlands, 1969-1975), David Lance (England 1975-1981), Helen Harrison (England, 1981 -1987), Jean- Claude Hayoz (Switzerland, 1987-1990), Sven Allerstrand (Sweden, 1990-1996) and the current secretary Albrecht Häfner (Germany, since 1996).
IASA's work has been determined by various themes and topics. Browsing the past issues of Phonographic Bulletin (subsequently IASA journal), one gets a fascinating insight into the development that sound archives have undergone within the last thirty years.
It is striking how often IASA has managed to engage with developments in the field of sound archiving and new technologies of audio-documentation at the earliest possible stage. In the early years IASA was mainly concerned with information on archives and archive structures in the member countries. As early as 1972 the Bulletin reported on archives in the Soviet Union, and this was followed during the next ten years by reports on other Asian countries (notably China), and Africa. Methodical issues and principal questions addressed by archives dominated the agenda, such as:
IASA's Technical Committee was founded in 1975 and has had an enormous impact on IASA's work as a whole. IASA owes much of its high international reputation to the excellent work of the Technical Committee which has been dominated by the following topics:
Other questions frequently discussed have concerned cooperation with partner organisations such as IAML, Association francaise des Archives Sonores (AFAS), Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT) and International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and especially UNESCO. Another regular topic is the discussion of IASA's future roles (1989) and a Philosophy of AV-Archiving (since 1992). Digitisation has dominated the agenda since 1993.
Like similar associations, IASA has been subject to organisational change and has always had to adapt to constantly emerging problems. In the beginning IASA acted primarily as a union of professional institutions. The forming of specialised committees encouraged the discussion of several sub-disciplines in the field of archives. Presently the following committees are in operation: Discography, Cataloguing and Documentation, National Archives, Radio Sound Archives, Technical Committee. Discussion within the committees increased IASA's professionalism.
IASA succeeded in recruiting many new members in the 1970s and 1980s most of whom came from the US and Australia, including a large number of private collectors. Not surprisingly, this development had constitutional effects on IASA.
National interests of many countries have been given added weight by IASA itself through the foundation of National Branches. These platforms help promote national interest within the executive board and IASA as a whole. With their excellent connections to Non-Governmental Organisations, both Helen Harrison, IASA General Secretary for many years, and Dietrich Schüller have boosted the Association's prestige by furthering its application to become a member of UNESCO. This success has enabled IASA to recruit new members from non-Western countries, i.e. countries in Asia, in Africa and most recently in South America. Since the end of the Cold War, IASA has gained many new members from the former socialist countries of Middle and Eastern Europe.
At the Helsinki Conference in 1993, the possible extension of IASA activities into the visual field (principally video) was the centre of discussion. This was a case of history repeating itself. A clash of interests with existing organisations, such as FIAT, could have developed. As was the case thirty years ago, diplomatic skill is needed in dealing with this kind of problem.
My review of thirty years of IASA can be summarised as follows. A professional organisation operating on a world-wide basis, even if it is relatively small, can succeed in pursuing and reaching its targets through patient persistence. The present and future of audio archiving and documentation is and will continue to be domainated by digitisation. Digitisation of collected items, changes in methods of working within archives and the development from archivist to data manager are the main challenges our profession is facing today. The networks of communication are getting tighter and tighter. Internet and E-Mail systems provide us with means of communication that the founding members of IASA could not have imagined in their boldest visions. If IASA succeeds in further increasing the professionalism of its members and member institutions, if IASA succeeds in encouraging its members to cooperate with and within the association and if IASA succeeds in maintaining open and fair cooperation with other professional organisations, then there will be no cause for concern about its future. However, it is also necessary to professionalise IASA's management. Moreover, independent initiatives or jealousies of single nations and institutions have to take second place to the common target of a world-wide network in the field of audio archives.
We can only reach this target together. With this in mind: Ad multos annos, IASA!
Ulf Scharlau, Südwestrundfunk
Article Keynote Address to the IASA Annual Conference Vienna 18-25 September 1999
Rolf Schuursma
In July 1979, on the occasion of my Presidential Address at the opening of the IASA Conference in Salzburg, it was my pleasure to congratulate the Phonogrammarchiv on its eightieth year. Nonetheless, I felt it my duty to remind the audience of a certain great piece of world literature in which a much older and somewhat different sound archive was demonstrated. That archive operated at very low cost, with virtually no managerial problems, with simple analogue technology and a surprising kind of public accessibility. I am, of course, referring to the horn of the coachman of Baron von Münchhausen - the horn which outside, in the bitter cold, got frozen and thus saved an archive full of beautiful melodies. Once warmed up in the cosy atmosphere of a local inn, it began to play those melodies entirely by itself, without any human interference. Unfortunately no Akademie der Wissenschaften was there to channel the experience into the grooves of research and development, which in the case of the Phonogrammarchiv brought so much profit to the world of sound archiving. Therefore, my little historical excursion, however well documented, has not appeared in archival textbooks and certainly will not keep us from celebrating the Phonogrammarchiv centenary today.
Allow me to continue this speech with a few words in German.
Ich möchte nämlich die Ősterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, das Kuratorium des Phonogrammarchivs und besonders Herrn Dr.Dietrich Schüller zu hundert Jahren Phonogrammarchiv herzlich gratulieren. Bald werden wir zurückschauen vom Standpunkt des nächsten Jahrhunderts und 1899 erfahren als ein Moment in der Altertumsgeschichte. Das Phonogrammarchiv ist aber wie immer sehr lebendig und lebhaft. Es freut mich daher meinem Freund Dietrich Schüller, dem Direktor des Phonogrammarchivs, sagen zu konnen wie sehr ich und vielen mit mir Seine Arbeit bewundert haben und auch jetzt bewundern. Es freut mich sehr auch Frau Barbara Schüller zu begrussen, Ich hoffe dass Dr.Schüller, Seine Mitarbeider und die Mitarbeiter der anderen wunderbaren Archiven in Ősterreich noch lange so wirken können, zu Gunsten der weltweiten Kreis der Schallarchiven.
To summarise these words in English, it is my pleasure to congratulate the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Kuratorium of the Phonogrammarchiv, and, in particular, my friend Dr. Dietrich Schüller, on the centenary celebration of the Phonogrammarchiv. We all admire Dietrich Schüller's professional work and it is our hope that he, his staff and the personnel from the other well-respected Austrian archives will continue their efforts, to the benefit of sound archives throughout the world.
There is yet another reason for this festive occasion. In 1969, in Amsterdam, the International Association of Sound Archives, IASA, was founded. Today we celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. In the same Presidential Address at the opening of the Salzburg Conference, which I mentioned before, I could not help wondering why it took so long before sound archives successfully accomplished the establishment of such an organisation of international status. I asked myself this all the more, since the distance in time between the inventions of Thomas Alva Edison and Charles Cros and the foundation of the first sound archive was only twenty-two years. However, we will not go into that question just now. Suffice it to say that after the enthusiastic but somewhat uncertain beginning, the Association - and I quote a few terms from the Presidential Address of David Lance in September 1981 - became 'adolescent' and subsequently reached 'adulthood', and even 'maturity'.
Because, of course, like every organisation of this kind, beginning from scratch, IASA has gone through different stages, each with its own qualities and problems. In his 'Personal Review of Thirty Years of IASA' in the recent Information Bulletin, Ulf Scharlau referred to the diplomatic, rather than professional challenges that IASA had to cope with in its initial stage. How true it was. The relationship with the International Association of Music Libraries, IAML, the organisation that had stood at the cradle of IASA, was not always easy. Yet, I also remember gratefully the support we received from IAML when IASA still had only a few members, people who were often also members of IAML, and little financial means.
But apart from these considerations, I would call the first stage of our Association the period of'getting acquainted'.The newly recruited members of IASA got to know eachother as well as eachother's archives. In the meantime the membership was becoming world-wide. In those days music was still the 'raison d'etre' of most member archives, very much stimulated by the close co-operation with IAML However, at the end of that period, in 1975 in Montreal, a session about oral history testified to the growing importance of that and other non-music fields.
The second stage, which we could title 'how did we do it', was the period in which we studied each other's solutions to collecting, storing, cataloguing, access, copyright, technical matters - the period in which we also began to professionalize the management of the Association and to set up committees dedicated to several of these subjects. In the technical committee Dietrich Schüller started what became an impressive range of research and recommendations.
Finally in the third stage, which we could title 'widening the scope', IASA received international recognition, in the first place from UNESCO. The Association began to play a role in the international information field: a status which IASA still enjoys. It is the fruit of continuity but also rejuvenation, thanks no doubt to the mix of experienced members and younger, developing talent. The recent refreshing design of IASA's house style is a token of that rejuvenating attitude. Personally I am very pleased that IASA's logo, designed during the first days of the Association in my Institute in Utrecht, has been kept.
Throughout the different periods of IASA's history many members contributed to the well being of the Association and its expansion. There were those who for many years were instrumental in raising the quality level of sound archiving and now belong to the gallery of honoured deceased. To name only a few: IASA's first two Presidents, Don Leavitt and Timothy Eckersley. And then several other distinguished members of the Association such as Herbert Rosenberg, Ivàn Pethes, Philip Miller, Claudie Marcel-Dubois and very recently Patrick Saul and Dietrich Lotichius. One remembers them with great respect and is grateful for their friendship. In the meantime the Association moves on.
Moves on, indeed. One of IASA's decisive steps towards the future has been the change of its name in order to incorporate audiovisual archives. 'What's in a name?' and how little it takes to add a few words to the title. However, it took the Association, if I may say so, quite some time and deliberation before it changed course. In the IASA Journal President Sven Allerstrand recently mentioned 'lengthy discussions of a decade or more'. I can help him there. As early as 1970, during its second annual meeting in Leipzig, some IAML and IASA members felt that the new Association could only survive if it incorporated audiovisual media. I also remember vividly the much later discussion between Ulf Scharlau and Dietrich Schüller in Helsinki, in 1993, each defending their own opinion as to the future of the Association. I read again with interest the remarks made from the floor at that same session, amongst them Rainer Hubert's argumentation for expanding into the AV field. These contributions were published in the IASA Journal, together with the urgent plea by Ray Edmondson for a widening of IASA's scope, as well as several opposite opinions. If I understand it well, it was not a group of audiovisual archives that knocked on IASA's door and forced the Association into the new direction. Rather it was technological development that pointed towards a more general audiovisual direction. Or should I say: the general digital direction in which all information seems to be heading these days.
Indeed, might it not be that the widening of IASA's scope has only been another step towards the new digital age. Will that be an age, in which the virtual reality of information will increasingly take the upper hand at the cost of the traditional realities of the physical world? The founder of Amazon.Com, Jeff Bezos, was quoted in The New Yorker of May 14, 1999 as follows:
"The fact of the matter is, the physical world is the best medium ever. It's an amazing medium. You can do more in the physical world than you can do anywhere else. I love the physical world!"
I am sure we all agree with him, if only now because we are enjoying the pleasure of being in Vienna. But the virtual world of digitization is just as exciting and promising, as Mr.Bezos would probably agree. It is only when virtual realities come to erode some of our most valuable cultural heritage that we tend to think twice. Take the case of research and university libraries - a field with which in the later part of my professional life I became well acquainted and which I can refer to now in order to point out one or two considerations on the threshold of the digital age.
According to many information technologists the role of research libraries will soon be shifting definitely from the traditional ways of collection building and distribution of book materials to one of supplying the right kind of digitized information for the right user at the right time. Libraries will no longer measure their value in terms of the amount of volumes on their shelves, in other words their millions of books and bound periodicals. Far more important will be the accessibility of information available throughout the world and the ability of the libraries to select from the unending amount of data just that information which will suit the user. Of course this can only be accomplished if libraries take part in networks, connected throughout the world by the Internet. A few weeks ago, when my wife Ann and I visited the Reference Department of the Library of the University of California at Los Angeles, we were able to view practically the whole library system of the Netherlands displayed on the computer screen. Searching whatever title in my former University Library in Rotterdam via the net connection was just as easy as if we were doing the same exercise at home. And that is how it should be.
But there is more. Natural scientists, in particular, who mainly work with factual data, have a strong need for continuous contact with databases, and, via e-mail, with colleagues throughout the world. They are very well served by new digital developments. But other researchers, particularly in the humanities, have a need for more elaborate, contemplative, reflective texts which one does not easily take from the rather restricted computer screen. Next to using the net, they want media more effective from their point of view - namely book materials. Therefore university and research libraries, which exist to cover the full range of human knowledge, do well to invest in both digital networking and the collecting and distributing of book materials. Unfortunately, in most library situations, financial restrictions make it impossible to give both sides the commitment they deserve. In many cases collection building suffers. In this respect, and despite its enormous advantages, the strong accent on the primary role of digitization of all information can cause an erosion of our cultural heritage, particularly in the humanities.
I wonder if this problem rings a bell in the archival environment? Of course, there are important differences compared with the library field. Archives are by definition the place where one expects to find unique documents that cannot be found anywhere else. Therefore it is even more necessary to do everything to save these documents in such a way that their original qualities are preserved. Digitization seems to provide an important instrument towards that end. Reading the 1997 recommendations of IASA's Technical Committee under the title The Safeguarding of the Audio Heritage - by the way this is a text that I plucked from the net - it seems that sound archives are taking good care of their future. Indeed, on our recent tour around the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, Ann and I saw a digitization operation underway in full force in her former workplace, the Ethnomusicology Archive. Thus, in this respect, sound and audiovisual collections seem to have a good connection with what is going to happen in the digital information age.
But this is still not the end of the story. What will the future bring? In the next century will not more and more information of all kinds stream out of the walls of libraries and archives into our private living rooms? At the same time will not analogous amounts of money be automatically transferred from the user's bank account to the information brokers who keep the flood of data going? As long as archives succeed in safeguarding their portion of such financial deals, no harm will be done. At least it does not seem so. On the contrary, archives may well play a bigger role in the information industry than we can imagine now. The more people become interested in historical items from the previous century, the more archives will be asked to deliver them. Yet, it also seems to me that the urge to digitize all possible information, making it thus available on standard format to all kinds of agencies, is not without risks. I was confirmed in this respect by what I read in the recent issues of the IASA journal. I refer to the lack of respect for archival materials that require time for detailed consideration instead of just 'zapping'. And - as Grace Koch has pointed out - the lack of respect this may represent for authentic spiritual and intellectual property.
Are such considerations a reason to stop digitizing, either in the library field or in the sphere of sound and audiovisual archives? Of course not, if only because major trends in human history cannot be reversed. And believe me, digitization and all it implies, forms a major trend in human history. Besides, digital or not, there will always be music lovers who like to hear a complete recording, even repeatedly. There will always be researchers who, carefully and with respect for the past, like to understand what an oral history or linguistic recording has to offer them. And as regards libraries, there will always be people interested in the Adventures of Baron von Münchhausen, people who besides getting a lot of information from the net, will like to read the adventures themselves in book form.
At the end of this speech I would like to look at my musical score, change the key once more to major and see what notes are left. They include a few words from the Presidential Address of David Lance in September 1981 in Budapest:
"IASA is a special Association full of a lot of very special people. The great bond of our Association is that these special people come together first and foremost as friends. As a result there exists in IASA a closeness and a warmth that is quite unusual and quite outstanding among professional organizations of my experience."
I hope David Lance won't mind my quoting him. I thank you for listening and I look forward to a very special IASA experience during this Conference week.
